March 5, 2016 – Since I think I may be in a good place with the canopy frame, I decided to let that sit and move on to prepping the sub-panel parts for their eventual installation.
I mentioned previously about installing a shim just forward of the windshield brace, since a gap is created. I made that shim and drilled it.
I also drilled the forward end of the angle where it attaches to the firewall.
I took the subpanel out as an assembly, and got some pictures for future reference.
The usual prep for paint, then everything was ready for assembly…
I started by assembling the center rib, including my tapered shim.
Getting the center rib through the subpanel bulkhead was interesting. I guess I had always previously done it in pieces. You have to twist everything and hold your tongue just the right way to get it to fit. The paint got a little scraped up, but I touched it up after this secondary assembly was done.
Here’s the assembly with the shim installed. You can just see it between the rib and the reinforcing angle:
I installed nutplates in all the angles where they are required.
Then I installed the outboard angles that hold the corners of the instrument panel.
Here’s the structure without the panel screwed in place:
Time: 7:00
